Our 4th of July Celebration

For those of you in the US, I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. Actually, I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, in the US or not. 

Our family gathered for a very fun day at home, so much fun it took a couple of days to recover! What can I say? We're patriotic people and like to celebrate our country's independence to the best of our resources.

My daughters gave me a gift card to Dollar Tree for my birthday last year, so I could pick up more frivolous things without guilt. I used some of its value to buy a bunch of small American flags and these patriotic dinner napkins. There were 25 napkins in the package. So I put the rest away and now have napkins for a few future 4ths of July.

The flags have plastic sticks, so they're perfect for popping into flower pots. And the flag part is plastic. I bought 2 packages of 3 flags/package. I'll put these away for future 4ths, too.

Another patriotic decor item came from a free pile this past winter. One of our neighbors put a box of  red and blue outdoor string lights out with a "free" sign back in February. Of course I picked it up. My family helped me hang a couple of strands along the deck railing and up into the trees on the 3rd.  The lights were festive and cheery in the background. The other great thing about this freebie is I will be using the strand, subbing orange bulbs for the red and blue, in the fall for Halloween. My other strand shorted out, but the light bulbs are still good.

We had perfect weather for the day, mildly warm at midday just as our neighborhood 4th of July parade passed by. My artist daughter set up a table and small easel at the driveway's edge and drew caricatures for anyone who wanted one. We had a couple of chairs set up, making our little part of the neighborhood a bit of a gathering spot. As a bonus, my daughter got hired for a caricature gig over the weekend as a result of her work on the 4th. She hires out to do caricatures at parties to earn a little extra money on the weekends.

After the parade our little foursome retreated to the backyard for a picnic on the lawn in the shade. As the afternoon began to heat up, we headed indoors to put together our 4th of July dinner.

Our son and daughter-in-law came overrun time for a cookout, yard games, and lots of fun fireworks. The menu for the cookout included a variety of hot dogs and sausages cooked on sticks over a fire, buns, sweet potato fries, potato chips (leftover from lunch's picnic), a slaw-type salad, raw vegetable platter, fresh cherries, fresh papaya (provided by my son and daughter-in-law), a cherry pie/jello/pretzel crust/sour cream dessert, lemon bars (leftover from lunch), and s'mores. It was a delicious dinner and dessert and an enjoyable time sitting around the fire ring.

After our own fireworks, the 6 of us took a late night walk through the neighborhood to watch our neighbors' fireworks displays. We tend to spend modestly on fireworks. However, a few of our neighbors go all out and put on pretty spectacular displays. One display went on until just before midnight. Around 1 AM we finally made it to bed.

We had such a fun time together. But now it's time to get back to work. 

Did you do anything fun for the 4th or over the weekend?

When you're going through a "tired" phase in your life -- 10 tips

Tired periods in life can be precipitated by illness, injury, surgery, grief, stress, loss or even those "happy" moments such as adding a child to the family or excelling in one's career or education. We all have those phases at some point. My own tired phase this go round is primarily due to my recent surgery. To deal with this, I compiled all of the advice I've been given in life and my own previous experience to come up with a list of 10 "rules" for myself.

Obviously, these suggestions only apply to responsibilities that are not part of paid employment. Beyond taking sick leave, most employers have only so much patience for an employee who performs well beneath their usual level for a prolonged period. My rules are more for how to deal with home responsibilities during a challenging phase.

Here they are:

1. Make physical contributors to recovery (those that boost health, such as sleep, water, good food, and sunshine) a priority. This is not the time to stay up late watching movies night after night or binge-eat a box of cookies or bag of chips. I've had to be more disciplined than normal and opt for a bowl of brown rice and garden greens for a snack in place of crackers more than once these last couple of weeks. I will say, however, that it's also important to allow yourself a treat here and there. Eating food that is pleasing lifts spirits, and that in itself is healing.
2. Lean into the responsibilities that you enjoy most or have the most ability for. For me, this would be cooking. I enjoy cooking and feel accomplishment when I've baked cookies or made a good lunch for the family. For others, this might mean doing basic cleaning, organizing tasks, or garden work. I've never enjoyed cleaning the house as much as I do baking. These last 2 weeks I've spent many of my work hours baking cookies, snack cake, bread and cheese strata, and mixing up a small batch of frosting for some lingering plain cupcakes that my daughter had baked. I feel productive. I am taking care of my family in this limited way. And I'm slowly reintroducing regular life back into my days.
3. Take the easy route with the jobs that you like less. This might mean spending a bit of extra money to buy cleaning supplies that do more of the work for you, or buying a few more convenience food products for daily meals. It might also mean using the vacuum on the kitchen and bathroom floors in place of a broom and skip the mopping for a week or two or three. Dusting tools abound and are real time-savers compared to a rag and spray. Heating a healthy frozen meal for dinner one night could provide you with time enough for a quick late afternoon nap. If you have friends or family who can pitch in on these chores that you find burdensome, ask. We'll be hosting a 4th of July celebration this Thursday. I don't mind the cooking part. It's the cleaning house that I dread. One of my daughters has offered to clean the guest bathroom and stove top for me. I'll also skip mopping the kitchen floor until after the gathering, running the vacuum over it to clean before our guests arrive. That will be clean enough, in my opinion.
4. Intersperse rest breaks in between work periods. These past couple of weeks I've found my days are often composed of 30 minute work periods alternated by 20 or 30 minutes rest periods. I also alternate rest days with work days. Yesterday needed to be a rest day, as I had constant low-level pain that didn't respond to meds. Today I was up and out the door to run my errands, shopping for the foods we'll want, picking up an rx for a family member, dodging into Value Village for a minute, and buying the fireworks. After a long rest break and lunch, I was able to get outside and water the garden. After a bit more of a break, I'll get up and make dinner. I can do all of this today because I had yesterday as a rest day and I know that tomorrow will also be rest day.
5. Accept a lower standard of "doing" for the time being. My projects are stacked up, but I'm not pushing myself to work speedily on any of them. I'm puttering, doing a bit here and there on my project list. On Saturday I began another spray paint project, but I only got halfway through it. I'm not pushing myself to complete this one, even though its completion is simple and uncomplicated. For now, I have accepted that I can't keep doing and doing,
6. Go fewer places in a week if you can. Send someone else to do the grocery shopping. Last week, I made a detailed list for my daughter to use when shopping for the family's groceries. It worked out well. She had time to spare and wanted to pick up a few things just for herself anyway. And it saved me from a huge energy crash that would have incurred had I done the week's shopping myself. If you don't have someone who can do the shopping, do a grocery pick-up order or even have your groceries delivered. Staying in more often during this "tired" time will result in a shorter recovery period overall. 
7. When you rest, really rest. Don't go online or even read a book. Close the curtains and lie down. I have to admit, I am so guilty of using rest breaks to go online. It's just so tempting. I've had to remind myself over and over that I do need real rest for me to move forward.
8. Expect bad days, whether those are emotionally or physically bad ones. They'll happen. Prepare your mind for them. The pain I had yesterday came seemingly out of the blue. I'd been doing so well with pain. It didn't make much sense that I would now have persistent, although low-level pain. But my doctor had warned me that doing too much too soon would increase blood flow and exacerbate pain. The same can be true if what's going on in your life is dealing with loss or excess stress. You can feel like you're dealing with everything well. And then boom, one little thing derails you. If you mentally prepare for these set-backs, you'll know in advance that you need to show a little more kindness to yourself and not try to power through it all.
9. If and/or when you have a set-back day, don't feel like you need to completely catch-up the next day. Go slow in catching back up and forgive yourself for your body or mind's limitations.
10. Finally, try not to think of yourself as feeble, infirm, or a hot mess. Stay hopeful that this period will pass, just as they always have passed before. My own "tired" phase does not define who I am at the core. I will return to an energetic person once again. No matter how fatigued I feel, I intellectually know that I've made a lot of progress from those first couple of days post-surgery. The fact that I got out and did the grocery shopping today is evidence that I'm doing better. One step in front of the other, and soon I'll be back to my normal.

What do you think? Do you have any advice for someone going through a "tired" phase in life?